


For We Are Glorious

by intolauren



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/F, Fluff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 03:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13332198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intolauren/pseuds/intolauren
Summary: It's the late 1800's. Lena Luthor is the most wealthy and talented playwright in National City who suddenly finds herself falling for Kara Danvers, an alien refugee and trapeze artist in the local circus.Or, a Supercorp AU based on and inspired by The Greatest Showman.





	For We Are Glorious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the only thing I have thought about for the entirety of the last week. I hope you'll stick along for the ride. A ride which I'm extremely excited about.
> 
> Please feel free to let me know what you think once you're done :)

The first time Lena sees it, she barely looks up. 

She’s on her way to work, and by work she means she’s on her way to her favourite bar to drink whiskey and pray for a miracle. Because it’s almost opening season and Lena still hasn’t written a thing, which means that she has no show, which means that she isn’t getting paid. Not that money is an issue presently, she’s a _Luthor_ after all, and she’s also one of the most successful playwrights in National City on top of that, but it makes Lena uneasy when she isn’t doing _something_. Especially since she’s a woman, and too many women her age are forced into marriages and playing housewife which is a life Lena would rather die than have to live. 

She’s deep in thought as she crosses the street, and the only reason she notices anything at all is because in a city of dirt and dullness, a bright yellow sign is pretty hard to miss.  


**“MUSEUM OF CURIOSITY”** it reads. **“OPENING NIGHT. PAY ON THE DOOR. 7:00PM.”**

****

****

She wonders briefly what on earth a museum of curiosity entails, before she’s at the door of the bar and once she’s inside, she forgets about the sign completely. 

She doesn’t even speak as she sits down at the bar and takes out her notebook, but a shot of her favourite scotch is placed in front of her anyway. She regards the bartender with a smile and places a coin down in front of her. 

“Good afternoon, Miss Luthor,” the bartender says, as he slips the coin into his pocket. “How’s the show coming along?” 

Lena sighs and scrunches her brow as she swallows down the shot and gestures for another. “It isn’t, unfortunately. Hence why I’m drinking whiskey at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.”

The bartender laughs. “You’re always drinking whiskey at 2 in the afternoon, Miss Luthor,” he chuckles as he slides her another shot. 

Lena waves her hand vaguely in response and taps her pen on the paper, willing the words to come to her. An hour and a few more shots later, when the page is still blank, Lena sighs loudly in frustration. 

“James,” she says to the bartender, and the fact that she addresses him by name says a lot about how often she’s in here. “If you were going to see a show, what would you want to see?” 

“Lots of women. Lots of women who all look like you,” James laughs crudely, and Lena rolls her eyes. 

She’s used to the men in this city talking about women in such a way, but it still makes her insides nauseate. She wishes she hadn’t asked. She forgets often that all men are the same in this city, James included, who she almost considers a friend given the amount of time she spends each day chatting to him. 

“With all due respect, James, I’m not the one standing behind a bar for 16 hours a day. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever stood behind _anyone_. So I’d watch your tone if I were you,” Lena retorts, closing her notebook with a loud snap and standing up from the bar. “And you’d be penniless without my tips. So I suggest you think about that next time you want to disrespect me.” 

James looks uncomfortably down at his feet and mumbles an apology, but Lena doesn’t even feel the slightest bit empowered by her ability to make him crumble. She knows other women in this city wouldn’t get the same reaction, and it’s only because of her wealth and her name that any man responds to her that way. Lena is also aware of how painfully she sounds like her mother when she speaks to people like that. And nothing about _that_ makes Lena feel good about herself. 

She leaves the bar then, and as she steps out into the daylight, the bright sunshine and the deathly cold winter air makes her dizzy. She’s too busy concentrating on not falling drunkenly in the street to notice the museum again. 

*

When Lena arrives home, she tries to make it upstairs to her room without being heard. Her head is starting to pound from the whiskey and she really needs to lie down. She’s just passing the kitchen door on her way to the stairs when she hears her mother’s voice coming from her study down the hall. 

“It’s disgraceful, utterly disgraceful. I hope the place burns,” Lillian Luthor drawls, her voice sounding bored and unaffected whilst also utterly offended at the same time. “As if this city needs anymore aliens being drawn to it. There’s enough of the vermin as it is without them thinking there’s any place for them here where their existence is okay!”

Lena frowns at her mother’s words, and something inside her shifts uncomfortably. She’s used to her mother talking about the lesser known residents of National City like this, because she’s grown up having had it drilled into her daily how disgusting and dangerous aliens apparently are. But Lena isn’t like her mother, and she struggles to understand what it is about them that’s so apparently wrong. Given that more humans commit murder and treason and theft on a daily basis than all of the aliens in the world put together, Lena simply cannot fathom why her mother, and most of the city in fact, gives them such a hard time. 

“And to call that freak show a museum is an insult!” Lillian continues. “A goddamn _circus_ is what it is. Who in their right mind agreed to it?!” 

“I have no idea, ma’am,” Lena hears Maggie, their housekeeper, respond. 

Maggie has been in their family ever since Lena was born, and she’s pretty much the only person Lena feels she can trust. Maggie raised her more than her mother did, by a clear mile, and she’s one of the only people Lena knows who makes her feel loved. They both share a particular dislike for Lena’s mother, and that’s just one of the reasons they get along so well. 

Lena smiles to herself as she pictures Maggie’s tight lipped smile as her mother drones on and on, and then slips up the stairs as quietly as possible, thankful that she has a shot of whiskey tucked into a hip flask to offer Maggie later on that evening. She knows Maggie will appreciate that. She always does. 

“Lena! Is that you?” She hears Lillian call.

Lena’s heart sinks at the sound of her mother calling her name. “Yes, mother!” She responds. “I was on my way upstairs to lie down. I have a headache.” 

Lillian appears in the hallway. “I hope you haven’t been drinking again, young lady. It’s a disgusting habit. And sitting around all those men all afternoon! There’s no wonder people talk about you in this city. You’re putting the Luthor name to shame, I’ve told you a thousand times. You’re a disgrace to this family.” 

Lena sighs, the sting of her mother’s words feeling like a punch in the gut even after all these years. Lena knows it’s pointless to argue with her mother, she’s learned that from experience, but she still dreams of the day where she’ll tell her exactly what she thinks of her and this so-called family. 

Lena sees Maggie send her a sympathetic look from behind her mother and it makes Lena feel better. She smiles. 

“I’m going upstairs to lie down,” she says, and she turns her back on both of them. 

“I hope you’ll be more presentable by dinner time, Lena. Your cousins are coming over and I don’t want you causing a scene like last time. Do you hear me?” Lillian yells, and Lena does hear her, but she pretends she doesn’t and instead continues climbing the stairs until she’s in the safety of her bedroom with the door closed. 

She lets the lock fall into the latch and exhales loudly at the comforting sound of it. 

She knows her mother won’t follow her, because she doesn’t care enough to pursue an argument if it means she actually has to climb the stairs after her. 

She reaches behind her and unties the laces of her corset, letting it loosen before kicking off her shoes and falling onto her bed, her eyes closed. 

She has absolutely no intention of being here at dinner time; she hates her cousins and she hates her mother and she _hates_ living in this house and being in this family. 

Letting the pull of the alcohol she’s been drinking take over her, Lena falls asleep. 

*

The second time Lena notices it, it’s impossible not to. Mostly due to the fact that there’s a middle aged man standing on the steps outside the building wearing a long red coat and shouting about how spectacular it is. 

She managed to escape the house before her cousins arrived, and she plans on being too drunk to even remember the consequences when she gets home later once she’s sure their guests have left. She knows her mother will hate that. She knows she’ll probably give her a slap if she gets close enough, but Lena doesn’t care about that right now. All she cares about is getting back to the bar and consuming copious amounts of whiskey.

Which is presently easier said than done considering the people milling around outside the entrance to the museum, which just so happens to be right across the street from the bar. 

Lena can’t help but let her curiosity get the better of her, and she stops and looks over at the building, at the middle aged yelling man. She can barely see him through the crowd of people beginning to gather, but his red top hat is almost unmissable among the sea of black coats and grey scarves and other shades of dark coloured garments typical of this city, especially this city in the throes of winter. 

She thinks briefly to herself what a nice change it makes to see some colour for once, before movement in one of the upstairs windows catches her eye. 

She glances up, and sees a blonde haired young woman gazing out of the window. Lena’s immediately taken aback by how… _pretty_ she is, even from a distance. Her hair is long and wavy and is pulled to one side where it flows down her front. She’s wearing glasses and a pink and sparkly headdress that shines in the low light of the gas street lamps. The woman has a small smile on her face, and the longer Lena looks at her, the more she herself wants to smile too. 

It’s clear even from here that she isn’t human; aliens have a particular glow about them, and Lena has always found that fascinating. She wonders what exactly about their DNA it is that makes their skin glow like that. She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t notice straight away when the blonde catches sight of her. It’s a few seconds before Lena realises she’s being stared at, the same way she’s staring, and she blushes and smiles sheepishly up at the woman when she’s caught. 

The woman smiles back, a shy and reserved smile, but a smile so beautiful that Lena’s heart skips in her chest. The world feels so quiet as the woman smiles, as though everything else is a thousand miles away. 

And then the woman is gone. 

Lena’s dumbfounded for a moment, and can’t tear her eyes from the window, but then, as if someone has snapped their fingers right by her ear, she’s back in the street and it’s starting to snow and there’s a skinny young boy with a dirty face pulling at the hem of her coat asking her if she has any spare change. 

She drops two coins into the palm of his hand, smiles and ruffles his hair, tells him “be good,” before glancing back up at the window, disappointment spreading through her to find it unoccupied still. 

She doesn’t question the disappointment, nor does she understand it entirely, and she finds herself hoping as she enters the bar, that this isn’t the last time she sees such a beautiful face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a comment, please! Or a kudos. Or both if you want to. (Honestly, either/or means the world to me.)


End file.
